The Blue Screen of Death Is Dead

Microsoft’s iconic Blue Screen of Death (BSOD) is dead after 40 years. RIP to the most panic-inducing screen a Windows user can encounter. Now, get ready to fear the Black Screen of Death.

In a blog post on its website today, the company revealed it’s ready to go live with an error screen redesign it’s been testing since March. In an update to all Windows 11, version 24H2 devices coming “later this summer,” the BSOD will finally be put out of its misery.

It’s likely to be a bittersweet moment for Windows users, who will undoubtedly have mixed feelings about the warning’s fate. Despite its ominous name, getting a BSOD wasn’t always as serious as it seemed—a simple crash could trigger it, and restarting could easily fix it. It could be worse than that, too, but in many cases, the old BSOD simply added a bit of personality to the most annoying interruptions to your workflow. Especially in recent years, when you would see a sideways frowning emoticon alongside your error message.

But sometimes, personality isn’t what you need, especially when you’re already stressed out about your computer encountering a serious error. Businesses and travelers alike were bombarded with a particularly unsolvable Blue Screen of Death during last year’s extended Crowdstrike outage, so it makes sense why Microsoft might want to move away from any association with it.

Enter the new Black Screen of Death. Looking more like other Windows error messages, this is a simple black screen that says, in white text, that “Your device ran into a problem and needs to restart.” Below that is a progress counter, alongside your error code and which process triggered it.

“The updated UI improves readability and aligns better with Windows 11 design principles,” Microsoft Vice President of Enterprise and OS Security David Weston said in today’s blog post.